


The second time around

by Misterghostfrog



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Haha wow those tags don't look like tags you would see on the same fic, Happy Ending, Multi, Team as Family, but here we are, hopeful vibes, overwatch falls again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 10:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13233762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misterghostfrog/pseuds/Misterghostfrog
Summary: The first time Overwatch fell, all that was left was bitterness and ashes.A small story about what happens the second time overwatch falls





	The second time around

**Author's Note:**

> Happy new year! 2017 was a hell of a ride, so I thought i'd start this new year off right with something sweet and hopeful. 
> 
> Thanks to Anj from the Mchanzo discord for Betaing!

The first time Overwatch fell, it went out in style.

 

The main HQ, down in flames. Almost all the founders in the ground before their time, a veritable shitshow, all live on TV.

 

The second time Overwatch fell, there was no fire, no death, no cameras.

 

It was an agreement. Overwatch was to be disbanded permanently, and nobody gets arrested.

 

Winston tried to fight it of course, but in the end there was no buts about it. The government had more money, more power, and unfortunately, more lawyers than the small organization could ever hope to muster. So he told everyone, he’d done what he could. Nobody begrudged him for his decision, they understood.

 

But there was something else different from when the first Overwatch fell.

 

When it first went down, it was in parts. Ana Amari losing her eye, Reinhardt’s forced retirement. Agents realizing that they were being used. That nobody had questioned anything in so long that they’d forgotten they weren’t just the governments gofer in fancy blue colors. McCree realizing that what they were being used for wasn’t going to stay hidden much longer, and if he wanted to make it through the inevitable coverup he had to get out before it was too late.

 

And for the last two founders, it was when everything was burning around them, literally.

 

This time, something was different.

 

The UN wasn’t involved this time. There was no government trying to cover its ass. No media, no rumors. No lingering sense of hopelessness as the agents fled the old watchpoints, they’d all seen what they could do together. Not weighed down by petty red tape. They’d all seen hope in the eyes of people worldwide, people who didn’t stop needing help just because nobody wanted to help them.

 

They all split, but they all knew this wouldn’t be the last time they saw each other. Maybe Overwatch was gone, but the fight wasn’t over, and they weren’t done yet.

 

And not everyone left alone.

 

McCree, for instance, took off with Hanzo at his side. Sure, with their shared bounties they’d be the prettiest wanted criminals at the ball, but hell, what’s a few extra million when you’re with your sweetheart?

He’d said as much to Hanzo, who’d laughed.

“Cheesy,” he’d said, as their fingers intertwined. And they’d smiled, because they were together, and even if they were leaving their family behind, it wasn’t forever. This wasn’t the end.

 

The old guard went together too, for different reasons.

They’d seen the mess their tragedy had left behind. And they were going to make it right. And they weren’t going to try to do it alone this time, they’d do better together, they think. They know better.

And with new information from an old friend who’d risked everything to get at the rot that had torn them apart and burned the evidence, they had direction. They knew where to go.

 

Not everyone left alone, but those who did, left with promises of the future.

 

Lena went home to Emily, full of stories and armed with a question to last a lifetime. And Emily, Emily had cried when she asked, the good kind of cry. Where smiling isn’t enough to express it all.

Wedding planning was risky when half the guests were wanted in nearly every state and country. But they managed.

 

Of course, not everyone went back to fight in the end. Bastion ended up living at the Lindholm household, who are now the proud owners of the best garden on their street, and with the most reliable babysitter anyone had ever met.

 

After Overwatch fell the second time, rumors began to spread across the world, sightings of vigilantes, old and new.

 

A pop star and a game streamer teamed up and took down a bunch of bank robbers down in Numbani. A climatologist stopping a burning building from collapsing while her girlfriend carried civilians to safety. Two women working together to stop a Vishkar takeover. A robot working as a crossing guard stopping a runaway bus. And what do you get when a monk, a ninja, and an angel walk into a hostage situation? Twenty lives saved and criminals behind bars, of course.

People are even claiming to have seen a gorilla chasing after a purse snatcher.

 

No, Overwatch didn’t burn like the first time around. And neither did its members. It became an idea, something to inspire them, to keep going even when the going gets rough.

 

And they’ll keep fighting. For as long as it takes. Because people don’t stop needing help just because people don’t want to help them. And the world won’t get better on its own.

 

The first time Overwatch fell, all that was left was bitterness and ashes.

 

The second time around, it left a promise. A promise of a brighter future, a family. And hope for a better world.


End file.
